


Take me down with you

by A_Shields



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:07:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27979329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Shields/pseuds/A_Shields
Summary: "Me and my boss, we’ve been working together to put your dad in prison."From the moment the heard the words from Callum’s mouth he felt sick, and he hasn’t stopped in the five weeks since.
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell
Comments: 10
Kudos: 87





	Take me down with you

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, so I’m not really sure what this is, I’ve written a few fics recently that haven’t seen the light of day but I randomly wrote this last night and I think it’s the one I hate the least so I’m posting it before I can convince myself otherwise.
> 
> Just an fyi this is set Jan/Feb next year and we are ignoring Ian's attack the fact that Stuart *might* have done something to Thompson this week. 
> 
> Also, for anyone that cares, I am continuing with the Informant, just grappling with a bit of writer’s block (and thought that posting this might help to get this scenario out of my head so I can hopefully move forward with that. Fingers crossed). 
> 
> Tw- Thompson has been physical with Callum in this, for a while. While there’s no violence in this, he has injuries and they are described. It’s not particularly graphic, and nothing worse than in canon, just some bruising and cuts. There’s also a brief mention of Paul (because it’s me), Callum’s kidnapping and light reference to Phil and Jonno's abuse.

Ben ducks his head as he breezes through the market. Usually he’d be all head up, scowl on to warn off any neighbours exchanging pleasantries with him but from the way he’s been moping about, throwing his weight around the Square for the last month or so they already know to steer clear. He’s done the leg work, now he’s coasting down the home straight.

_Me and my boss, we’ve been working together to put your dad in prison._

His body trembles at the memory of Callum’s words, the feel of his fingers as they gripped at Ben’s shirt, his shoulders, his skin, trying anything he could to hold his ground as Ben forced him out the door. He swallows down the scream growing in his throat as he remembers the look in Callum’s eyes, the desperation for Ben to listen, the fear, the exhaustion; how Callum pleaded with him to understand, let him explain. His step falters when he remembers how Callum’s voice broke in unison with Ben’s heart, the only sound that could ever make Ben want to rip his implant out of his head and be confined to silence once again.

From the moment the heard the words from Callum’s mouth he felt sick, and he hasn’t stopped in the five weeks since. Sometimes it lessens, when he’s spending time with Jay or playing with Lexi, but it always creeps in, the constant feeling of _Callum should be here too,_ how they’re his family too, an emptiness, a feeling of being incomplete.

And that’s not even a patch on the gut wrenching, heart stopping, wants-to-crawl-out-of-his-fucking-skin agony he feels when he sees the man himself.

In the direct aftermath Ben didn’t see Callum for two weeks. He heard mutterings about him on the grapevine, how he was still in the Square, keeping himself to himself and just going to work and coming home, avoiding trouble, avoiding Ben. He’d also managed to pick up a fair bit from the couple of visits he had from Stuart, all wide eyed and livid, begging him to help his brother live again. The more he found out, the more he wished he knew nothing.

It got to a point where Ben was getting sick of it, if Callum was going to fuck over his family the least he could do was show his face after. But Ben should know by now to be careful what he wishes for, because he doesn’t think he’ll ever recover from when he did see Callum in the flesh.

He’d come into the pub with Stuart one evening, his brother had clearly forced him out of the flat and Callum looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there, and that was before he had even laid eyes on Ben. But Ben had clocked him straight away, always has done, always will. He saw the fuzz on his face, what he recalled to be Callum’s five-day stubble that honestly, was almost a full on beard, he saw how his shirt was a little creased, dishevelled, not like the perfectly ironed clothes he usually wore.

His heart hammered more violently in his chest the longer he looked, a voice in his head telling him to _look away look away look away_. He knows it well, the voice of self-preservation, it’s the one he always ignores.

He should have though, because hiding at the edge of Callum’s stubble was a deep purple bruise that lined his cheekbone, a gnarly cut on his lip that shone with fresh blood and something in Ben felt drawn towards it, needed to touch it, kiss it better. The bags under his eyes were blue and sunken, one taking a slightly more purple shine and everything about him just looked _hollow._

It’s a look Ben’s used to seeing on himself but seeing it on Callum made him want to throw up, the reality of the situation too much. He had wondered if that’s what he puts his family through whenever he comes home in a state, then he remembered that Callum’s the only one who cared enough to react in such a way, downed his drink, slamming the empty glass on the bar with a thud and left the pub.

In his reminiscent haze Ben missed himself arriving home, momentarily disorientated to find himself stood in the kitchen. He looks at the wall and scoffs, _pale yellow, it’s calming. Could do with some of that in this house_ Sharon had said when she picked the colour years ago, his dad half perplexed half disinterested.

A rattling knock at the back door startles him out of the memory, and it’s a good job, otherwise he’d be picking over other memories from his childhood, browsing through the failings of his mum and dad like a flip book of how not to raise a child and he can’t be doing that today. He’s already relived enough pain for today.

It seems the day’s anguish isn’t over though, because when he opens the door Callum’s staring back at him.

It feels like he’s been starved, seconds from death and here Callum is, the meal to save him, his lifeline. He’s felt this before, when Callum returned a year ago, showed up at the Car Lot not unlike now, catching Ben of guard, saving him. Only then Ben was the one in the wrong, Callum hurt and angry and now it's his turn. Is he angry? He had been, when Callum finally broke and told him the truth he was absolutely livid, gunning for Callum and his boss and well, everyone really. But it simmered, dissipated into hurt which is stronger, runs deeper but Callum’s always been his fix for everything.

The bruises of a few weeks ago are gone, a small scab remains on his lip that Ben reckons will drop off in a day or two, he’s well versed in the healing pattern of a beating, someone may as well give him a stethoscope and a fuck tonne of money at this point. 

_You’re here. I’ve missed you. I need you_ all dance on the tip of his tongue, but Ben’s never been allowed to dance so he goes in for the kill instead.

“What are you doing here?”

“Sorry, erm,” Callum avoids his eyes, dropping his eyes to the floor, the wall. _Pale, calming._ “I can’t find my watch, been looking all over for it but it ain’t turned up. I was wondering if I could have a look here?”

Ben sighs deeply. He’d noticed Callum wasn’t wearing it in the pub that time, knows he never goes anywhere without it, so instead of running of to some club for a hookup like Callum probably assumed, Ben _wanted_ him to assume, Ben had gone home, turning his room upside down until he found it lodged behind Callum’s bedside table, _his_ bedside table. He remembered Callum had kicked it really hard when he came _that_ morning, the morning of the night of the truth, knocking everything on top of it flying, watch included.

In Callum’s panicked rush to get to work and Ben’s hysterical laughter as his boyfriend struggled to get his trousers on quickly and look for his watch simultaneously, they hadn’t thought to check behind the bedside table. Funny as it was, Ben was confused as to why Callum was so desperate to get to work, so scared of being late, now he knows why.

Callum never goes anywhere without his watch. Ben should have known.

“Sorry, I really have looked everywhere.” Callum reasons, his voice small. Ben blinks as the kitchen comes back into focus around him.

“Yeah, yeah its here. I meant to give it to ya but-“ _but I couldn’t let it go. But it was all I had left._

Callum nods, he gets it.

“I’ll uh..” Ben says awkwardly, pointing to the stairs. _Fuck._

He reaches his room, closing the door to behind him. It feels sacred, momentous, giving Callum back the last thing Ben has of his and he needs a moment to fall apart so he doesn’t break entirely.

With trembling fingers he opens the top drawer of his dresser, his fingertips make contact with the metal and for a second he can’t tell if it’s really hot or really cold, but then he adjusts. It’s cold, it’ll always be cold now.

He lets out a deep breath, its warmth fogging up the clockface. His fingers close around it slowly, the way tension filled muscles move with a calm stillness, last moments of serenity before the storm closes in.

His arm raises, starting a throwing motion aiming at the wall but he stops himself, pressing it hard to his forehead instead as a sob escapes him, deep from his chest.

He’s angry, fucking raging at himself because he’s not angry at Callum. He wants to be, _needs_ to be, but he’s just tired, fucking catatonic because he knows, in the deepest part of himself he _knows_ that this is on him, that Callum was protecting him, cleaning up his mess and getting himself in an even bigger one because that’s what he does.

And here he is, returning the prized possession of the love of his life over a month after they broke up and he’s only got himself to blame, because that’s what he does.

He returns to the kitchen and sees that Callum hasn’t moved. It feels weird, doesn’t sit right that this place was once Callum’s home, albeit briefly, and now he doesn’t even feel comfortable enough to move around a room on his own here. It makes sense, after everything. It’s not his home anymore and everything’s changed, everything and nothing.

Ben forces the watch into Callum’s hand, muttering a barely audible “here” in the hope Callum doesn’t hear how wrecked he is.

Callum utters a small “thanks” as Ben settles on the opposite side of the room.

“I’m surprised your dad ain’t killed me yet.” Callum says after a few beats of silence.

“He don’t know.”

“You didn’t tell him?”

Ben shakes his head.

“Thank you.” Callum says earnest. And then, “I didn’t deserve that.”

Ben wants to say he didn’t do it for him but that’s a lie, he did do it for him. And he would do it again, _will_ do it again every day for the rest of his life if it means keeping Callum safe. 

_For Callum I would_.

“Why did you do it?”

“I told you Ben, Thompson was gonna put you away.”

“But you said you said no at first, what changed?”

Callum sighs deeply, runs a hand over his face before he speaks. “I saw Lexi, after you’d been arrested. She was asking me where you were and if you were ok and when she’d be able to see you and I thought there is no way I am not doing everything I possibly can to keep her dad in her life. To keep _her_ in _your_ life. ‘Cos I know, Ben, I know what she means to you, and I know you’d never forgive yourself if..”

“If what?”

“If you did to her what your dad did to you.”

Fuck _. Fuckfuckfuckfuck._

Ben falls against the counter behind him, a house of cards in a gust of wind. He’s never been so tired, so physically and mentally _exhausted_ as he feels right now, has done for the last five weeks. He couldn’t figure it out at first, why this has got him so bad, why it’s worse than this time last year, than him losing his hearing, his mother’s ‘death’, even losing Paul, but then it hit him.

This is his fault.

Dumping Callum last year was his doing, but not his _choice_ , he did that to protect him, keep him away from Phil’s poison. Even Paul’s death, which he’s spent so long blaming himself for wasn’t actually on him. He knows, he’s always known it was just buried deep down, and Callum brought it out of him. But _this.._ this is fault. If he hadn’t been so desperate to prove himself to his dad, if he hadn’t pushed Callum away when he was trying so desperately to hold on, to save them then Callum wouldn’t have needed to do any of this.

“This is all so fucked”

Callum laughs, humourless, “yeah.”

Ben looks across the room only to find Callum’s eyes are already trained on him and in an instant they’re back here again, roles reversed but here all the same, Ben leant against the hob, Callum by the sink. Echoes of _I don’t wanna do this anymore_ reverberate around his head and it rings true. He doesn’t want to do this anymore.

He wants to take Callum’s hand and hold it forever, take him upstairs to his bed, _their_ bed and love him, caress him, savour him until the sun peaks over the horizon. He can almost feel Callum’s body against his, trace soft moans that start with vibrations in his chest and fall from his lips, ending their journey in the small bones of Ben’s ears, in the fire they ignite in his gut but his bubble is burst when Callum speaks.

“I should go,” before Ben can say anything Callum’s pushing himself off the counter. He moves too quickly though, and he winces, falling back to his original spot, to square one.

“Callum?”

“I—I’m fine”

“You don’t look fine.”

“It’s just- Thompson,” he glances at Ben, whose body stiffens at the mention of him. “He hit me yesterday and I’m a bit sore. I’m fine, though.” He says, moving to reach for the door again.

“Where?” Ben chokes out, his voice fails him but he also wants to scream. He’s coursing with fire, every fibre in his body alight with it, but by some miracle he manages to contain it enough to carefully guide Callum back to the kitchen side.

Callum points vaguely to his abdomen and Ben’s standing in front of him before he realises he’s moved.

Ben moves in close, any thoughts of _what am I doing?_ Silenced by the tangible presence of the man in front of him, the way Callum’s breath ghosts warm on the peach fuzz of Ben’s cheek, the gentle knock and press of their knees. He looks up, finding Callum’s eyes, sullen and exhausted, his silent question answered with a small, curt nod. 

Ben’s fingers trail softly over Callum’s buttons, undoing them one by one, revealing the soft, pale skin of his chest that gradually mottles, deep purple and blue forming the imprint of a fist on his stomach, blotches of colour wrapping around his ribs. Fingertip-shaped bruises litter his sternum and collarbone, forming a dot-to-dot outline of the hand of a monster.

Ben’s hands shake, and he has to move them away, balling them at his sides because how hard did Thompson have to push on Callum to leave these marks? How long has he been doing this? When Ben saw his injuries in The Vic before he assumed they were from a scuffle with a perp, a one-time thing, how wrong he was. But Thompson’s smart, taking a leaf out of both of their father’s books, moving to where no one will see, hiding in plain sight.

Callum catches Ben hands, bringing them up and holding them to his chest, an unsaid _it’s ok, I’m ok_ in his glistening eyes. Ben exhales, his breath shaking. He trails his fingertips carefully over the bruises, feeling as if they’re wrapped around his own lungs, unable to breathe, unable to hate Callum, unable to think of anything except how much he wants to _fucking murder_ the animal that did this, caused Callum so much hurt.

“Cal-“

“I’m ok. It’s always worse the next day.”

Ben nods once, he knows. He also knows it’s even worse on day three. He looks at Callum, he knows too.

“I’ve had worse” Callum laughs, it falling flat instantly. Ben’s horror is reflected momentarily in Callum’s before he recovers it, Ben’s not the only one who’s had years of practise at this.

His heart swells painfully and he hates it. Hates that after everything he put Callum through with Keanu and the kidnapping, using him as his own metaphorical punching bag when he lost his hearing and Callum could have upped and left whenever he wanted but he didn’t. He didn’t because it’s who he is, he didn’t because he’s _lovely_ and what’s more he’s risked his job, his happiness, his _life_ and god knows what else to keep Ben safe, keep him with his daughter, keep him from the consequences of his own actions.

His fingertips graze Callum’s cheek, thumb ghosting over his lips and his heart leaps when Callum leans into it, eyes fluttering closed. Ben finally does the thing he wanted to do three weeks ago, moving up onto his tiptoes to place a featherlight kiss on the almost healed cut on Callum’s mouth, rough scab surrounded by soft lips. Callum looks down at him, dazed, and Ben suddenly feels lucky it was only three weeks; he would have waited a lifetime for that.

He drops his head onto Callum’s shoulder, forehead pressing into the muscle, his heartbeat fluttering faintly against Ben’s cheek. Ben’s warm breath spreads over Callum’s skin, igniting it, goosebumps erupting and smoothing out under Ben’s touch.

He lets his weight fall into Callum a little, not wanting to fully let go, keeping a handle on things as to not hurt him again. Callum’s arms wrap around him, there’s a hesitance at first that almost winds Ben but then they’re there, holding him tight, sure, steadfast.

He hums, breathing Callum in, feeling it as his head starts to swim; his favourite kind of intoxication.

“Stay.”

He feels Callum nod against his head and god, he wants to stay here, let Callum’s fingers scratch in his hair for the rest of time but he can’t. Standing here with Callum and wanting time to stop is all well and good until the big bad wolf comes and huffs and puff and blows their house down.

But Ben’s no damsel, and if Thompson wants a fight, he’s fucking got one.

“Ben, what about your dad?” Callum asks and Ben stands, tearing himself away and the absence of Callum’s warmth against him is a bereavement. 

“What he don’t know can’t hurt him, or us.” Callum smiles, relief flooding his face.

 _Us_.

This time it feels different somehow, a level playing field perhaps. A stronger foundation.

“Thompson, Ben he won’t drop this. Believe me, I’ve tried.” Callum insists, looking down at his battered body.

“He will.”

“No, he-“

“He will _._ Just needs a bit of.. _persuasion_ , that’s all.”

“Ben.. he’s dangerous.”

“So am I.”

“Ben.."

“Are you saying you don’t want him taken down?”

“Well no, but—”

“Callum he hurt you!” Fuck, he’s lost it, shown his hand. As if he hadn’t already, as if his cards weren’t on the table for everyone and their mum to see when he was lying on the floor of The Vic, his blood staining Callum’s wedding suit crimson. “After everything he’s done to you, to us… I ain’t gonna let that slide.”

Callum gulps, “what do you need me to do?”

Ben exhales a soft laugh, reaching to take Callum’s face in his hands, placing a kiss on his forehead because he loves him, because he’s _here_ , because Callum has cleaned up more than enough of Ben’s messes. It’s about time he returned the favour.

“You leave it to me.”


End file.
